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About 25% of my scheduled recordings are not recording probably more . The timer turns on the device but the recording does not start , when checking the timer the screen has nothing scheduled . The timer will turn off the device at the end ,but no recording . It doesn't matter if it was scheduled with the epg or set manually . Any suggestions ? Also I am sure that it is scheduled to record not view.

I remember it happens to me for on both IV3500 and HW150 once. Both happens when I unplug the drive and reformat it and replug without power down STB.
When I press Timer, I lost all schedule record events. I have to re-setup all schedule Events again.
When I first get IV3500 and HW150, keep playing around formating and difference type of drive, SD card, HardDrive(difference size), Flash memory(difference speed). I use the laptop to format the drive, not using
IV3500 or HW150.

I am not sure this is your issue. However, it is a good reference for others.

First, back in the analog era, there was a time signal carried by many PBS stations. That's long gone, but any analog signal can carry a similar time signal. For example, my old SD satellite receiver outputs the analog time signal, and I have an old VCR getting its time from that receiver to prove it. It's possible that Cox also does this on one or more of their analog channels, if they have any left.

Second, for digital over-the-air, there's a time signal included in each station's PSIP. Note the difference: with analog, there was one station (typically PBS) broadcasting a time signal. With digital, each station broadcasts its own time signal. PSIP is the only time signal supported by the Homeworx or iView: they don't even have an analog tuner, so they couldn't possibly support the old analog time signal even if it's available.

For the Homeworx or iView to start a timed recording, an accurate PSIP time signal must be available on the station it's tuned to. That's the station it "listens" to in order to start the recording. A time signal on another station wouldn't help.

Third, cable companies don't generally rebroadcast OTA digital signals unmodified. Instead, they extract the streams they want and multiplex them onto their own digital channels. Unfortunately, this process drops the PSIP info from the OTA stations.

A cable company could insert its own PSIP onto its QAM channels, but many don't. Instead, they use their own cable industry standards for the functions that OTA stations use PSIP for, including time. The Homeworx, iView, and in fact most clear QAM tuners don't support those cable standards. That's why the Homeworx and iView don't work well with most cable systems.

In short, Cox is probably sending the time, but not in a form that the Homeworx or iView can use. The Homeworx and iView need PSIP, and they need it on every station.

Clint's local HD channels (e.g., channel 712) are QAM. His SD channels, 2-99, could be QAM or analog. (Probably mostly QAM, but I wouldn't be surprised if at least some turned out to be analog.) The Homeworx and iView will receive the QAM channels (but not any analog ones). However, without PSIP they will almost surely have different channel numbers. A cable user would just have to tune through all the channels (potentially hundreds) and find out which ones are which. (Many will turn out to be scrambled channels, which can just be deleted of course.)

Thanks for all the info. A few things: I can say that their basic cable (QAM?) without any STB is not purely A or D. Their cable without an STB can be viewed on an analog TV (VCR, etc.), so at least it's not purely digital. And, any HDTV can also receive both the SD analog and local HDTV channels without a STB, so it's not purely analog. All I can surmise from that is Cox is at the least sending both A and D signals through the basic cable line. Also, the time signal is received on this basic cable line, and was used to set my Mag 2160A, and other devices that can receive a time signal, so that signal is analog. I don't have any purely ATSC/digital devices, they are all A/D. My Mag 2160A's auto clock was set to "Auto" so I don't exactly know from what channel it got its time signal, but I know it was on analog because at the the time I had the analog tuner being used and none of the DTV channels were set in it yet. I would guess the only way to know if any time signal is being sent through their DTV channels is to reset the clock or manually give it the incorrect time, put it back to 'auto', then keep the 2160A on "DTV" for a while and see if the time is set correctly. If it is, would that mean the Homeworx would work?

Quote:

One last thing: it's important to understand that the Homeworx and iView don't have a "clock," in the sense of a gadget that keeps reasonably accurate time once you set it. They rely on PSIP time being broadcast continuously. (It's more like a stopped clock that gets reset every second!) It might be possible to rig a true clock in the firmware, if there's some periodic interrupt occurring at the hardware level, but no guarantees - and even if possible, it could still take a major rewrite of the firmware to enable a true clock. So I wouldn't hold my breath.

I can't understand why these people cannot just simply add a real clock to their product.

... the time signal is received on this basic cable line, and was used to set my Mag 2160A, and other devices that can receive a time signal, so that signal is analog. I don't have any purely ATSC/digital devices, they are all A/D. My Mag 2160A's auto clock was set to "Auto" so I don't exactly know from what channel it got its time signal, but I know it was on analog because at the the time I had the analog tuner being used and none of the DTV channels were set in it yet. I would guess the only way to know if any time signal is being sent through their DTV channels is to reset the clock or manually give it the incorrect time, put it back to 'auto', then keep the 2160A on "DTV" for a while and see if the time is set correctly. If it is, would that mean the Homeworx would work?

You can find and confirm the channel(s), analog or digital, that send a time signal to the 2160A using "The 11:57 Procedure," described here.

... the time signal is received on this basic cable line, and was used to set my Mag 2160A, and other devices that can receive a time signal, so that signal is analog. I don't have any purely ATSC/digital devices, they are all A/D. My Mag 2160A's auto clock was set to "Auto" so I don't exactly know from what channel it got its time signal, but I know it was on analog because at the the time I had the analog tuner being used and none of the DTV channels were set in it yet. I would guess the only way to know if any time signal is being sent through their DTV channels is to reset the clock or manually give it the incorrect time, put it back to 'auto', then keep the 2160A on "DTV" for a while and see if the time is set correctly. If it is, would that mean the Homeworx would work?

You can find and confirm the channel(s), analog or digital, that send a time signal to the 2160A using "The 11:57 Procedure," described here.

"QAM" is a modulation scheme; i.e., a way of imposing a signal on a radio-frequency (RF) carrier, much as AM and FM are modulation schemes for radio. QAM can be used for analog signals, but in the current discussion it only refers to digital signals carried by cable TV providers. In other words, consider QAM shorthand for "digital cable" here.

"Analog," in the current discussion, refers to NTSC-standard audio and video; i.e., mono or stereo audio plus composite video or S-video, or an RF carrier modulated with them.

"Basic cable" simply refers to the set of channels a cable TV provider gives to every one of its customers. These can be either analog or QAM (digital). If they're HD, they're definitely QAM since there's no standard analog modulation scheme for HD. If they're SD, they could be either QAM or analog.

"Clear" means unscrambled or unencrypted; i.e., watchable on an HDTV without a cable box or CableCARD. Oddly, depending on your cable provider, "basic cable" channels may not all be "clear." Some cable companies (most notably Comcast) scramble everything; others (TWC) may scramble all but the local broadcast stations, public interest channels (C-SPAN) and "pay-to-play" channels (infomercials, religious, etc.)

A QAM signal can carry many channels, but an analog signal only carries one. So cable providers have been phasing out analog signals and replacing them with QAM signals to make room for more channels. Some cable providers are now completely digital, but many, including Clint's cable, still have some analog stations.

As Clint discovered, an old analog-only TV or VCR can be used to find out which channels are analog, and a newer HDTV can be used to figure out which of the remaining (digital) channels are unscrambled. The Homeworx and iView can only tune the channels which you can watch on an HDTV without the cable box but cannot watch on an old TV or record on a VCR.

BTW, I agree with Clint that the Homeworx and iView should have included a clock, ideally including a WWVB receiver. It would've added less than $5 to the cost and made timed recordings work without PSIP. Maybe in the next model

Should the Homeworx have included an analog tuner as well? I don't think so. Analog stations couldn't be recorded or time-shifted unless an MPEG-2 encoder were also included. Heck, they couldn't even be viewed on HDMI without at least an A/D converter. So an analog tuner by itself wouldn't be very useful, and adding the stuff to make it useful would've run up the cost. True, an analog tuner could pick up analog time signals, but a simple clock would be a much more universal solution to that problem.

... you can somewhat mitigate the problem of certain channels having bad clocks by creating "Viewing" timers which occur on channels with accurate clocks prior to "Recording" timers which occur on channels with inaccurate clocks. A time signal on another station can, therefore, help.

Of course, if the channel you want to record always sends an inaccurate clock with a fixed difference between its time and the real time, you could just adjust your timers for that channel accordingly, but doing this could also cause you to miss timers on other channels that have different clocks. If a channel's clock varies wildly from day to day, or you need to record on different channels in succession, using Viewing timers might make it easier to record on time.

I thought about suggesting that, but held back because:

As you say, it generally wouldn't help cable TV customers

Although "viewing" timers can help ensure a recording starts on time, I don't think they'd help the recording stop on time! After all, once the recording starts, the Homeworx is now getting its time from the station being recorded. (It only has one tuner, after all.) Presumably that time is incorrect, or you wouldn't have bothered with the "viewing" timer in the first place.

Although "viewing" timers can help ensure a recording starts on time, I don't think they'd help the recording stop on time! After all, once the recording starts, the Homeworx is now getting its time from the station being recorded. (It only has one tuner, after all.) Presumably that time is incorrect, or you wouldn't have bothered with the "viewing" timer in the first place.

The recording will end on time because these boxes record on a timer basis. Only the start time matters. Once it gets the start time from the channel it is currently tuned into before the recording starts, it will then record for the number of minutes it calculates exists between the start and end times. Even though it is now getting the clock time from the recording channel, it will not effect when the recording stops because it is not looking at the clock for an end time, only counting number of minutes from the start time.

Even though the viewing method will let you record on stations with bad clocks, it may not help if you want to make multiple recordings in a row. For example, if the clock of the station you're recording is several minutes fast, by the time you finish your first recording, the clock on that station would be beyond the time when the next timer is supposed to fire, which could result in some of the missed timers that people are experiencing. If a timer from 8:00 - 9:00 ends when the station thinks it's 9:05, it could interfere with a second timer that's supposed to start at 9:00, so you might need to deliberately set the second timer to start at 9:05 to account for the bogus clock of the first station, even though the recording will actually take place at 9:00.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JHBrandt

BTW, I agree with Clint that the Homeworx and iView should have included a clock, ideally including a WWVB receiver. It would've added less than $5 to the cost and made timed recordings work without PSIP.

That would make too much sense. They probably expected (erroneously) that stations would all send the correct time, which is sadly not the case. Even major networks are sometimes wrong.

On my FTA satellite receiver, I MUST set all back-to-back recordings with a 1 minute buffer between them. Such as 4pm - 4:59pm and then 5pm - 6pm if I'm not going to start anything new at 6pm. If there's no 1 minute buffer, it won't record the second program. Perhaps this is the same way.

Although "viewing" timers can help ensure a recording starts on time, I don't think they'd help the recording stop on time! After all, once the recording starts, the Homeworx is now getting its time from the station being recorded. (It only has one tuner, after all.) Presumably that time is incorrect, or you wouldn't have bothered with the "viewing" timer in the first place.

The recording will end on time because these boxes record on a timer basis. Only the start time matters. Once it gets the start time from the channel it is currently tuned into before the recording starts, it will then record for the number of minutes it calculates exists between the start and end times. Even though it is now getting the clock time from the recording channel, it will not effect when the recording stops because it is not looking at the clock for an end time, only counting number of minutes from the start time.

If that's correct, it would imply that these boxes do have an internal clock after all. Anything that could accurately time a recording, and stop it at the correct time without reference to an external time source like PSIP, could be used as a clock. All you'd have to do is repeatedly time 1 minute, then bump the time-of-day (and, at midnight, the day-of-week) stored in memory. Firmware could allow the time-of-day and day-of-week to be either set manually, or synced to a user-specified station with accurate PSIP time when in standby.

I was inclined to believe both the iView and Homeworx folks who said a clock couldn't be implemented in the current boxes, but now I'm beginning to wonder. So which is it? Do these boxes have timer/clock chips or not?

In Minneapolis with a brand new HDTV with NO AUDIO OUTPUT.
I want to watch my Comcast basic cable with home theater audio.
The HW-150PVR seems like a good workaround option. (Coax into Homeworx, HDMI into receiver, audio signal goes to speakers, video signal goes to TV.)
I got the unit, upgraded to v12 firmware to enable QAM.
Full channel scan finds hundreds of channels, very few work and they all have random channel numbers and assignments (253 PR630014, etc)
The ones that do work both have picture and sounds as intended, but are mostly public access and filler type channels. Where are the network channels?
I saw the tip to do manual scan, but when I try my basic local channels (ie, 4(CBS), 5(ABC), 9(FOX), 11(NBC)) they come up with nothing.
All I want is exactly what I get when I plug the TV directly into the wall.
Are my channels not available via this box?
Thanks in advance for any help.

I would guess (not following these FW versions) you have a version that only finds 'in the clear' stations that have no virtual channel numbers. All of your OTA locals have, so this will not 'see' them. Try another FW version.

.
.
Abundant OTA television is what makes this country different from all others. Lets keep it this way. If you like Wi-Fi so much, OTA fits right in. After all, it is wireless.

Ok, after scrolling through all the the auto-scanned channels (~200), it looks like most of them (~15) are in there somewhere, however the channel numbers and assignments make no sense at all. Looks like I will need to note down each channel, then delete everything, manual scan the ones I want, then rename each one.

One of the problems with the QAM firmware it that the channel scan finds encrypted (scrambled) channels as well as clear ones. That's why you found so many channels that don't work. You'll have to do what you suggested to get rid of them.

Also, without PSIP (which many cable systems lack), the channel numbers won't match your cable system. You'll have to rename them manually so you'll know which channels are which.

great. thanks for the replies. fortunately, I don't have too many channels to get sorted out - biggest victory is that the scan picked them up. it also sounds like this process will need to be repeated if there are any future firmware updates.

See post 272 from Mediasonic. There are now two versions of the OTA-only firmware, and two versions of the QAM-enabled firmware (so four firmware versions total) to accommodate two different remote layouts.

Oddly, versions V10 (OTA-only) and V12 (QAM-enabled) are for the original remote layout, but the post says the OTA-only version for the new remote layout is V8. So new remote, lower version number. Weird.

Not sure about the QAM-enabled firmware for the new remote. The post seemed to say it was also V12. I guess it's OK as long as it works, but it's confusing to have two different V12's.

Personally, I would've gone with something like V10B and V12B, to indicate different variants with the same functionality. But that's just me.

Ok, after scrolling through all the the auto-scanned channels (~200), it looks like most of them (~15) are in there somewhere, however the channel numbers and assignments make no sense at all. Looks like I will need to note down each channel, then delete everything, manual scan the ones I want, then rename each one.

I am in the SW burbs of Minneapolis and tried this with my HW...Here are some helpers
-easiest thing to do is only do a manual scan on specific channels
-click on link below and put in your zip. Select Comcast and see what channels they are actually broadcasting on....not what they are suppose to map tohttp://www.silicondust.com/support/channels/
-The HW does not remap like your TV would. So as example 5-1, 5-5 and 9-1 are on RF13 and will load as 13-1, 13-2, 13-3
-even though you do a manual scan there will be some channels that log dummy (scrambled) channels.

The firmware is available on Mediasonics forum , format a flash drive to fat 32 . The link is in the OP's first post . You will need to know which one to flash by the way the remote is configured .

From his description, I was assuming his Homeworx won't boot at all, in which case he won't be able to flash through the menu. If this is the case, Mediasonic will have to tell him if there is way he can flash an unbootable box, like you can with some computers, phones, other devices depending on the circumstances. I think that is what he was asking. I would contact them directly, not on this forum, and see if you can get an actual tech person on the phone, which is not likely but it wouldn't hurt to try. I wouldn't be hopeful about them providing you this information even if it is available, but like I said, you can try just in case. Maybe you will get lucky.

If that's correct, it would imply that these boxes do have an internal clock after all. Anything that could accurately time a recording, and stop it at the correct time without reference to an external time source like PSIP, could be used as a clock. All you'd have to do is repeatedly time 1 minute, then bump the time-of-day (and, at midnight, the day-of-week) stored in memory. Firmware could allow the time-of-day and day-of-week to be either set manually, or synced to a user-specified station with accurate PSIP time when in standby.

I was inclined to believe both the iView and Homeworx folks who said a clock couldn't be implemented in the current boxes, but now I'm beginning to wonder. So which is it? Do these boxes have timer/clock chips or not?

You're confusing computer hardware terminology with layman's terms.

All digital processors have clocks.
The main clock is the timing signal of a fixed frequency for the processor. The original IBM PC used a processor clock of 4.5 MHz. The typical modern PC uses a processor clock of 1 to 2 GHz. The MStar 7816 SoC in these units has a 552 MHz clock.
(There are asynchronous logic devices, but they are rare.)

Modern processors have interval timers.
These timers are hardware registers driven by a clock source, count (down) clock cycles and generate interrupt events, e.g. a periodic interval timer aka PIT.
There are typically (longer/slower) software interval timers that are derived from these (shorter/faster) hardware interval timers.
The MStar 7816 obviously has an interval timer that operates in low-power mode that can wake-up the processor from sleep mode to perform a scheduled recording.

Maintaining the time-of-day (aka wall clock time) while the processor is fully powered up is rarely an issue, although systems perform this with varying degrees of accuracy.
The problem is acquiring/maintaining the time-of-day when the unit powers up or awakens from sleep.
The common solution for computers to obtain the time-of-day is to use a RealTime Clock (aka RTC), which is often a low-power device that can be battery powered for continuous operation.
But if the unit (such as an ATSC tuner) already has access to time-of-day sources, such as (compliant) ATSC signals, then the unit could dispense with an RTC.
Solutions involving AC line frequency or radio signals are impractical, incomplete and/or simply not cost effective.

As I previously posted the MStar 7816 SoC used in theses STBs may already have an integrated (but unused and unusable) RTC, according to the boot log.